A flat lay is a photo composition of objects shot at a 90-degree angle. Strictly vertical shooting is the main feature of flat lay photography. Subjects are placed on the backdrop, the composition is built, and the photo is taken without tilting the camera relative to the background.

The main popularity of flat lay came with Instagram, where you can find a lot of these photos under the corresponding hashtag.

You might have noticed that you can admire such photos for a long time, looking at the details. The whole secret lies in the harmony of the composition, starting from the location of objects in the frame, and ending with a well-chosen color palette. The perfect balance of all the elements in the frame sets the very feeling of aesthetics and viewing pleasure.

Today we are going to talk about flat lay wedding photography.

Wedding flat lay ideas

The main difference between wedding flat lay and the other kinds are the wedding props, wedding color palette, and styling. If you consider a wedding as an event of your life, then it deserves all the things to be captured and accumulated in your lay flat wedding album. The album will be all about the things that will hint at your good memories of the wedding the way it should not include any people in a frame, which will trigger your memories with the props and accessories to it. So, let us start with the invitation!

Setting up wedding invitation flat lay

Let us make it step by step. The 1-st thing we need to do is to gather the items for the shot.

So what are the items?

  • Backdrop
  • Props
  • Invitation cards

Backdrop

Any of the flat lays require you to choose the backdrop at 1st. The backdrop would be a surface to place all the elements on it. It could be a piece of linen material or textured solid. To follow the concept of an appropriate color palette featuring wedding style, we would recommend using complementary colors of white and its tints for all the elements, including the backdrop. It could be soft purple, beige, or a very light cyan. Speaking differently, the color of your backdrop should be neutral, and consider the items set on to be either matching or adding up the color gently to the backdrop. The backdrop with a bit of texture will make the photo look less flat, however, it is called flat lay, and you can still add some interest to it.

Props

To create an organized pile, you need to consider all the wedding items: the shoes, the veil, florals, invitations, stationery, calligraphy, jewelry, ribbon, etc. On the day of the wedding, you can walk up to the florist and ask if they have a few extra floral pieces lying around, that you could use for your flat lay. Also, pay attention to the venue decor, sometimes you will have things lying around that you could possibly incorporate into your flat lays.

Invitation cards

Set up your invitation stuff on the backdrop and see how it looks. The stuff should be all separated by contents to show up the envelope, RSVP itself, and the final version of the invitation all wrapped up right next to it. We are looking at how the color palette adds up with all the neutral colors. If everything is eye-pleasing enough, then we can start managing items' placement.

Building the scene

So thinking in terms of visual hierarchy, we always like to start with our main subject of the image first, which is always for an invitation suite, the main invite.

Make sure that the accent lies on the RSVP, so place it in the center of your composition. The main thing is that you want the eye to be leading back to the invite, so it is not mandatory for it to be in a center, but then you need to manage other things around the way it will cycle the eye back to the invitation.

Start building from big to small, around the invitation with the other elements. Play with the layout of how things will fall, thinking of it in terms of having a nice flow. Playing with it, you can set the pieces to overlap each other. After getting your general layout, you can add in risers to give a bit more depth.

Level it up

Use clear acrylic pieces for the raisers and set them underneath your elements to lift them up a bit above the backdrop. You can set different levels, lifting one item and leaving the other to stay untouched. We can use those levels as a pathway through for the ribbon as our final touch.

As we set all our paper goods, then we can go back to our wedding flat lay props, and choose the elements to decorate our composition. It could be scissors, greenery, and prepared flat lay flowers.

Flower flat lay photography

If the wedding invitation flat lay is done, we can go to another idea to fill your lay flat wedding book using just the flowers. With the flowers, you can also set different compositions that will still have a theme for your wedding.

Mostly, people are making words with the flowers on the backdrop, it could be words of love, wishes, or even the names of the bride and husband. You can add those even to your invitation card’s composition at some point, but it is also good to have it exclusive to your album’s variety. Do not forget to include the rings to follow the wedding theme.